


something Right. lighter than Lights.

by joldiego



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canonical Character Death, Everybody Lives, F/M, Fix-It, M/M, Possession, Temporary Character Death, but like... friendly possession. a productive possession if you will, deadlights ex machina lmao, stephen king it's my turn to play in the sandbox, the deadlights possess richie and then Fix Stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-25
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2021-01-02 22:34:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21168965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joldiego/pseuds/joldiego
Summary: The Lights are ancient, and the Lights have always been tethered. Orbiting and spiraling tight around IT’s center. Simply an observer of… everything.The Lights Saw All but the Lights Felt Nothing.When IT’s heart is crushed, the Lights don’t feel quite so dead.In fact, this feeling might be something like Living.The deadlights have known the Losers Club for a long time, and maybe they've grown a little fond.





	something Right. lighter than Lights.

**Author's Note:**

> stephen king this is my fic and i get to change all the existing lore
> 
> lol this idea clawed its way out from the recesses of my brain while i was drunk
> 
> i'm still working on you'd almost believe it! stay tuned! i'm just struggling to tie up some canon loose ends before i get into more fun social media plot stuff, and i really struggle with writing myra even tho she's barely in it :/
> 
> anyway, enjoy this! it's kind of bonkers, but that's what i like about it

The Lights are ancient, and the Lights have always been tethered. Orbiting and spiraling tight around IT’s center. Simply an observer of… everything.

The Lights Saw All but the Lights Felt Nothing.

When IT’s heart is crushed, the Lights don’t feel quite so dead.

In fact, this feeling might be something like Living.

It’s so all-encompassing and sparklingly new, that the Lights almost miss what’s happening to the Children.

The Lights know no one as well as They know the Children.

The loud one’s soul cries out in agony, his despair creeps like vines up the tendrils of Light that are still planted in his head. The rest of the Children drag him away from the small one, who lies still and broken in his final resting place. The loud one shouts and trembles, and the Lights feel as if Their foundation has shifted.

The Lights have never been able to help before. Never orbited someone other than IT.

The Lights nestle themselves quietly just left of the center in the loud one’s soul, feeling something that resembles a Beginning.

* * *

For a short amount of time, the Lights simply watch. That’s all They’ve ever really done, shining brightly but quietly as IT pointed them this way and that.

The Lights watch as the Children leap and then fall. They fall into the water and cleanse themselves. They cleanse themselves and they weep for the small one and the one who knows.

The loud one’s pain radiates through the Lights’ entire being, where They’re seated at his core. Of course, the Lights have witnessed grief before, grief would follow wherever IT went, but Feeling grief is something new and terrible and wonderful.

The loud one burns but his blood runs like ice water. His head is heavy and dizzyingly light all at once. His heart pounds and his stomach is lead and his chest is bursting with Something. There’s so much Something that the Lights are tempted to flee then and there.

But instead, They remember the solace of sleep. The comfort of velvety oblivion for twenty-seven loops around the sun. _Sleep eases pain. Sleep eases everything._

The Lights reach gently upwards, to where the loud one thinks and exists. They wrap him gently in Their soft light, guiding him down to where the Lights sit comfortably. Just left of the center. They soothe him into his own void, to heal without distraction or pain.

Of course, a person’s soul isn’t designed for this sort of capacity, so the Lights have nowhere to go but up. They find themselves in the space where all of the thinking and existing occurs.

And it’s… different. It’s the sensation of having a body, of having any sensation at all. It’s not bad, just entirely unfamiliar. So the Lights are perfectly willing to do the existing while the loud one sleeps.

But the Lights hadn’t accounted for the other Children.

__

__

_( ( An onlooker would have witnessed a peculiar sight: a man wailing with all he’s worth, flanked on every side by those he loves, held tightly. But suddenly, he stops. His arms fall to his sides, his spine straightens. There are still tears rolling down his cheeks, but he’s stopped crying. His face goes blank but his eyes have Something in them. The closest way that this Something could be described by human perception is as Something Bright. It’s as if you watched a human being be reset. He sits stock-still in the water as his friends turn to him in concern. ) )_

The red one places a pair of glasses onto the loud one’s face, The Light’s face at the moment, They suppose, wondering at the way the thick glass pulls the red one’s face into focus. She frowns as she studies him.

“Richie, are you okay?”

The Lights consider this. _He’s sleeping,_ They suppose. “Yes. Okay.”

The Lights are somewhat awed by having a Voice. The loud one’s voice sounds different under the control of the Lights. Smoother. Tentative and airy.

The one they follow appears in Their field of vision, his brow furrowed. “Do you think he’s going into shock? Do w-we take him to the hospital?”

“I think we should just bring him back to the townhouse so he can sleep,” The one who stayed suggests, squeezing Their hand, “How does that sound, Richie?”

The Lights realize belatedly that They do not quite know how to emulate the particular way that the loud one Exists, and that They’re causing the rest of the Children additional distress.

So They take a different approach, “You don’t have to worry. I put the loud one to sleep, he’ll feel better when he wakes.”

The energy in the air changes immediately, and the Lights know that They’ve done something wrong.

All of the Children step away from the Lights, looking at Them with something like fear.

“Richie? Is that you in there?” The one they follow speaks without stumbling.

“He’s still here, I’m letting him rest. He’s grieving.”

The lovely one looks at Them with wide eyes. “Then who are you?”

“I’m the Lights. You’ve known me since the first time we met.”

The red one pales, uttering, “The Deadlights.” Then the rest of the Children look just as petrified.

The Lights have a feeling that They are causing more grief than They intended, so They resolve to explain in terms that the Children can understand.

__

__

_( ( Now, the Lights know Understanding a little differently than we know understanding. Without realizing, They extend something like trust and warmth, a balmy patch of sunlight that soothes the Children. Tense shoulders loosen and brows smooth. And even if they don’t understand, they Understand that the Light means them no harm. ) )_

“I was tethered to IT, but you severed that connection when you killed IT, so now I’m… just Lights, I suppose. The loud one was in so much pain, so I decided that if I exist for him, he can rest until he feels better.”

The one who stayed seems to understand first. “So, you were under It’s control?”

The Lights nod once.

“When you say, ‘the loud one,’ that’s Richie? And he’s okay? He’s just– He’s sleeping, but he’s still there?”

“Yes. He’s grieving for the small one and the one who knows.”

The one who stayed tilts his head in confusion, but the red one knows, asking, “Eddie and Stan?”

The Lights nod.

“The one who kn...ows? What does Stan know?” The one they follow doesn’t look convinced.

The Lights smile gently, one may even describe it as fond. “He knows most things. He knows who Belongs. The red one and the lovely one. The loud one and the small one. He knows better than anyone.”

The red one presses her lips together and blushes. More red. The lovely one glances at her. The Lights were always particularly fond of him, perhaps because They knew the red one’s soul so well, had seen what she had seen, felt what she felt.

The one who stayed isn’t quite so coy. He smothers a small smile, “Well, the red one is obvious. And the lovely one? Ben?”

The lovely one blushes as dark as the red one. The one they follow wrinkles his nose teasingly, shoving at the lovely one’s shoulder.

“Ben, I think th-the deadlights have a crush on you.”

The lovely one only sputters in response, before flapping one hand at the Lights, pointing to his friends in turn, “Wait, wait, come on, what do you call them? Mike and Bill?”

“The one who stayed. The one you follow.”

The one they follow looks taken aback, but oddly touched. The one who stayed simply nods in understanding, he knows the sacrifice he made.

The red one has a small smile on her face, but her eyes are sad. The lovely one threads his fingers through hers and gives her a questioning look.

“Richie and Eddie,” she says, “Stan knew better than any of us.”

“He always did.” The one they follow swallows thickly.

The one who stayed clears his throat purposefully, looking the Lights dead in the eye, “Um, Lights. I know that you mean well, but it’s important that Richie is here with us. He’s going to hurt, but he’ll never be able to move forward unless he grieves.”

The Lights feel confused, and the loud one’s muscles tilt Their head to one side as humans often do when they feel lost, “But he was in pain. I’ve fixed it.”

The red one comes right up to Them, taking one of Their hands and squeezing it gently. Her smile trembles and her eyes are wet. “Honey, nothing can quite fix this. Losing someone isn’t something that you can fix, it’s something that you have to learn to live with.”

The Lights consider this. _They can’t fix grief._ But maybe… 

“If I fix the loss, then the pain is gone?”

The red one frowns, “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

The Lights breathe the words more than They say them. A bit of Their Something leaking into the loud one’s voice.

_”Fix the loss.”_

The Lights shut the loud one’s eyes, focusing in on the realm that They know. A realm full of Everything and Everyone. Their souls and being and energy and. and. and. and. There’s so much And because there’s so much Everything.

But the Lights don’t need Everything, they only seek out two familiar spots of Something. These two familiar spots of Something are not so hard to find, the Lights know them well. But spots of Something need Places, and that’s exactly what they lack: Places.

The human body isn’t quite so complicated, but people get attached to certain bodies. The Lights know this. They just need to be mended. Heal what’s been hurt, stitch what’s been torn. It really isn’t so hard.

The Lights spark Their two lost Children anew, setting them afloat. But not the wrong sort of floating. The sort of floating that we all do, everyday, as we just Are.

The Lights open the loud one’s eyes, and the rest of the Children are peering at Them with mixtures of concern and curiosity. The Lights smile slowly and widely, They know that They’ve done this right. Finally, the Children will have what they’re Owed.

“I’ve fixed the loss. I’m going to go now.”

“Wait! What do you–” The world goes fuzzy as the Lights slip from the space where the loud one thinks and exists, retrieving him from just left of the center and replacing him gently where he belongs before exiting his being entirely. The feeling of Sensation is gone, but this new Feeling is something much better.

It’s something Right. It’s lighter than Lights.

The Lights linger unseen above the Children as the loud one returns to his existence, the lovely one catching him when he falls right over, croaking, “What the fuck was that?”

The one who stayed looks at him wide-eyed, “Um, you were kind of possessed by the deadlights.”

The Lights resent that.

“I was _what?”_

The lovely one is practically holding him upright. “But it’s okay! They were, like… friendly?”

“Oh! Well, thanks, Ben! I’m glad that since I got fucking _possessed,_ it was by _Casper the fucking friendly deadlights!”_

The red one bites her lip. “Wait, but what did they mean? _‘I have fixed the loss.’_ What did they fix?”

“Um, guys?” The one they follow is looking farther into the quarry where the water goes deep. There are bubbles rising to the surface. He stumbles towards them through the water, the others watching as he swims closer.

Two bodies rise from the bottom of the quarry, gasping at the surface. Splashing and treading water, clinging to each other as they are set afloat on the mortal plane once more.

The small one coughs, blinking owlishly at the man next to him. “Stan? What the fucking–”

“You–? Eddie? Eddie– I thought that I–”

They’re startled by whooping and cheering. The rest of the Children are staggering clumsily through the water towards their friends, wired with disbelief and love and Light.

The small one and the one who knows paddle towards them in return, confused as ever, but always locked in orbit with these people who are simply Right.

They all fall together into a heap of limbs, the small one and the one who knows at the center. The Children breathe with each other. They cry and whisper tearfully. Every once and a while, one will simply cheer upwards, bursting with joyful noise.

In turn, they each get a good look at the face of the one who knows, seeing him grown for the first time, but still the Same as ever. Some of them grab at his wrists, feeling desperately for the smooth, unbroken skin. They splay their hands across the small one’s chest and back, marveling at him, solid and whole.

The loud one takes the small one’s face in his hands, pressing their foreheads together, murmuring Important things.

The red one smiles upwards, knowingly and thankfully.

Finally, they feel Light.

**Author's Note:**

> i may eventually write a version of this from the losers point of view... but like , dont hold me to that
> 
> thank you for reading! lmao i hope this is isn't so stylized that it's incomprehensible
> 
> yell at me on my tumblr at [squaaash](https://squaaash.tumblr.com) and [reblog this fic](https://squaaash.tumblr.com/post/188578626374/something-right-lighter-than-lights-joldiego) if you like!
> 
> comments and kudos feed my soul :)


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